


Run

by YouTalkLikeADentist



Series: Harry Potter gen fics that are like unplanned babies [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 12:48:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8056993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouTalkLikeADentist/pseuds/YouTalkLikeADentist
Summary: Harry thought that they wouldn't do anything now, now that he knew he had magic, now that they had seen what people would do if they tried to stop him. He thought they would put up with him; after all, he would only be there for a little while, a few weeks before going off for months and months. He was wrong.





	Run

 

Harry Potter is a wizard. He can do magic, the likes of which would astound many people. His parents loved him very much.

 

This is the truth.

 

Harry Potter is a wizard. He can do magic, the likes of which leave his aunt and uncle in fits of anger and horror. He has no family left but them and they hate him very much.

 

This is also the truth.

 

Harry thought that they wouldn't do anything now, now that he knew he had magic, now that they had seen what people would do if they tried to stop him. He thought they would put up with him; after all, he would only be there for a little while, a few weeks before going off for months and months.

 

He was wrong.

 

His new trunk is upended, the books in it burnt, the clothes cut into rags, the owl allowed to escape before the cage is sold off and his _wand_ , the thing that reminds him that he is magic, the eleven inches of holly with the phoenix feather that connected him to his magic with that warmth, is snapped along with his wrist and with it, his last hopes of escape are lost.

 

Chores and pain occupy his days. His nights are filled with nightmares.

 

He is back in his cupboard now, with its nothingness and its spiders.

 

The wood above his head creaks and groans. His life blurs into nothingness.

 

Dudley jeers at his cousin and prepares for Smeltings. His cane strikes out at Harry often but he is so gone that he doesn't feel the pain half the time.

 

Until _it_ happens. A pencil rolls its way out of Dudley's thing and into Harry's hands. He hides it and in the silence of his cupboard holds it in his hands.

 

He doesn't know what wood it is made of and the core is just graphite. It's thin and long, the smooth plastic-y covering outside it making it feel almost slippery. The rubber at the end is bouncy but firm.

 

It is nothing like his wand was, with its gentle grooves, its gnarled grip, and the slight curve in it. But for a moment, Harry holds it in his hand and thinks of performing a spell. For a moment, he closes his eyes, tries to recall the words he had read in the book while sitting in the Leaky Cauldron and says 'Lumos'.

 

He opens them with hopes, hopes of something, _anything_ happening but only despairs. Says it again and a light fills his sight but it is not coming from the wand, no it is coming from within him. It is almost blinding and Harry laughs, for a moment forgetting where he was.

 

Magic. He had almost lost it.

 

But then the wood boards of the stairs don't just creak, they groan and ache under the stomping footsteps coming down them and he panics.

 

The pencil is still in his hand and he shakes it hoping that it would _do_ something, that somehow the light would die.

 

It doesn't. He is still glowing when his cupboard door is wrenched open and his eyes meet the furious ones of Vernon Dursley.

 

What happens next, Harry does not know. Or perhaps he simply doesn't want to know and pushes it out of his mind. But when he hears shrieks and shakes himself out of his stupor, when he sees his aunt wailing and grabbing at her husband, her husband who has a pencil sticking out his ear, eyes glassy and unseeing and a blooming pool of blood under him, he knows he cannot stay anymore.

 

Harry Potter is a _murderer_.

 

That is the only truth he knows now and he runs out the door, runs hard and fast on bare feet that tear and bleed and blister and only stops when he feels the heavy press of a forest all around him.

 

It was dark and dank, a half moon hanging in the sky and the trees ominously moved, forming shadows that should have terrified him.

 

But he was alone.

 

And he was safe from _them_. And more importantly, _they_ were safe from him.

 


End file.
